[from ‘Users' Network’; the original spelling was
USENET, but the mixed-case form is now widely preferred] A distributed
bboard (bulletin board) system supported mainly by
Unix machines. Originally implemented in 1979--1980 by Steve Bellovin, Jim
Ellis, Tom Truscott, and Steve Daniel at Duke University and the University
of North Carolina, it has swiftly grown to become international in scope
and is now probably the largest decentralized information utility in
existence. As of late 2002, it hosts over 100,000
newsgroups and an unguessably huge volume of new
technical articles, news, discussion, chatter, and
flamage every day (and that leaves out the
graphics...).

By the year the Internet hit the mainstream (1994) the original UUCP
transport for Usenet was fading out of use — almost all Usenet
connections were over Internet links. A lot of newbies and journalists
began to refer to “Internet newsgroups” as though Usenet was
and always had been just another Internet service. This ignorance greatly
annoys experienced Usenetters.